Tis the season when Art Neville’s youthful voice is once again omnipresent across New Orleans.

Matt Rose / Times-Picayune archiveArt Neville has gigs with the original and Funky Meters on tap for the first half of 2011.

In 1954, the teenage Neville and his fellow Hawketts re-recorded “Mardi Gras Mambo,” a country song originally sung by Jodie Levens. Neville and company dunked it in south Louisiana swamp water to concoct the version that endures some 57 years later.

“Mardi Gras Mambo” is only one chapter in the New Orleans music book authored by Neville. He’s still adding pages.

At 72, he doesn’t drive any more, per orders of his wife, Lorraine. But he’s eager to perform as much as possible. “I’m ready for all of it,” he said this week. “The Nevilles, the Meters, the Funky Meters...”

On Friday, Feb. 25, he plans to sit in with the Get Together, a project fronted by his Meters bandmate Leo Nocentelli. A slew of dates with the reactivated Funky Meters is on tap for the spring.

His Neville Brothers schedule is uncharacteristically light, as various brothers pursue other interests. Aaron, now settled in New York City with his new bride, will tour as a guest vocalist with the Blind Boys of Alabama this spring. Cyril skipped some Neville Brothers dates last year to tour as a guest vocalist with New Orleans nouveau-funk band Galactic.

So far, the only 2011 concert listed on the Neville Brothers web site is May 8, the closing Sunday of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Art said of the Nevilles’ light schedule. “I don’t even try to explain it.”

On his own personal priority list, the Funky Meters are “No. 1, as far as I’m concerned.”

On Jan. 14, the Funky Meters rocked Tipitina’s with Brian Stoltz restored to the guitar position. For the previous three years, Art’s son Ian held the job. But Ian’s busy schedule with cousin Ivan Neville’s DumpstaPhunk left him unable to commit to the Funky Meters’ full platter of dates.

Art “explained to Ian, ‘Look, bruh, I’ve got to keep the band working. You sound great. We’re going to invite you up when you’re not working nowhere, and have you and Brian.’”

More recently, the Funky Meters – which also features bassist George Porter Jr. and drummer Russell Batiste -- logged three consecutive nights, Feb. 14-16, at the Brooklyn Bowl in New York. “We hadn’t seen each other in a long time,” Neville said. “To get onstage and play, and the audience goes to reacting…. what I heard up there in Brooklyn, it’s serious.”

At the Brooklyn Bowl, the Funky Meters shared the stage with such special guests as ?uestlove, the drummer from the Roots; Kim Thompson, the drummer in Beyonce’s band; and Eric Krasno, the guitarist in groove-jazz band Soulive.

In April, the Funky Meters are booked at several festivals and clubs in Australia and New Zealand. (They’ll be Down Under at the same time as Aaron and the Blind Boys.) “The only thing I don’t like is that cab ride” across the Pacific Ocean, Neville joked.

On May 6, the second Friday of Jazz Fest, the Funky Meters share a bill with Galactic at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts.

In June, Neville, Nocentelli and Porter reunite with drummer Zigaboo Modeliste as the original Meters to back Dr. John at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. They’ll perform Dr. John’s 1974 album “Desitively Bonnaroo” – the Meters served as the studio band on the original recording – in honor of Bonnaroo’s 10th anniversary.

The Meters have reunited only intermittently since they laid down the foundation for New Orleans funk in the late 1960s and ‘70s. The most recent reunion ended in 2006 with Neville, for one, expressing doubt that they would ever reform again.

In part, past divisions stemmed from a long-running lawsuit pitting the Meters against former producer Allen Toussaint and his business partner, the late Marshall Sehorn. The musicians accused Toussaint and Sehorn of defrauding them of publishing rights and royalties. Neville, Porter and Nocentelli settled the suit in 1989, but Modeliste pressed on with the litigation.

Since the original Meters last performed in late 2006, Neville and Porter have continued to work together in the Funky Meters. Neville and Nocentelli speak often. He’s had much less contact with Modeliste.

“It’s time everybody go to talkin’ again, before we go to dyin’,” Neville said. “I don’t want to die with nothing on my conscience.”

Neville first heard about the possibility of performing at Bonnaroo this year from Dr. John. “He said, ‘It’s in the wind that we’re going to do it.’ That’s going to be a good thing. Bonnaroo is a lot of younger people.”

He remembers little from the original 1974 “Desitively Bonnaroo” sessions.

“I don’t even have the album. I used to have it. I don’t know what happened to it. But once we hear it again, it won’t be any problem to play it.”

He is continually amazed by the endurance of the Meters catalog, which still supplies its creators with steady income. The 1969 single “Cissy Strut” was recently enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame. The song was featured last year in the Bruce Willis movie “Red.”

That and other Meters chestnuts blew away the “young kids” at the Brooklyn Bowl, Neville said. “We recorded that stuff so long ago, and it still works.”